A former civil servant who was convicted of the possession and distribution of child sex abuse images has been jailed for 4\u00bd years.<\/p>\n
David Smyth (55) of Jamestown Avenue, Inchicore<\/a>, Dublin, was convicted by a jury earlier this year of distribution of child abuse images on January 30th, 2016 and possession of child abuse images on dates between November 1st, 2015 and May 21st, 2016.<\/p>\n He has no previous convictions and continues to deny any part in the offending.<\/p>\n The maximum sentence for possession of the material is five years and for distribution it is 14 years.<\/p>\n Dublin Circuit Criminal Court<\/a> heardthe offences were discovered following an alert from US authorities and An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a> began an investigation that eventually linked various online aliases to Smyth.<\/p>\n Judge Jonathan Dunphy said the aggravating factor in relation to the distribution included the seriousness of the charge, the number of files and the required planning and premeditation required to use an alias to engage with the undercover agent.<\/p>\n The judge also observed this was not a victimless crime and that real harm was done to very young children who were the subject of vile offences.<\/p>\n He said Smyth had fully contested the trial and laid the blame at someone else\u2019s door. He could not be given credit for a plea and had no insight into his offending.<\/p>\n Dunphy noted a number of people were in court to support Smyth, buthe had been suspended from his employment and will now lose his job. He noted the issues outlined in a psychological report before the court and that Smyth had previously had an excellent work history.<\/p>\n He noted the ongoing medical issues and work Smyth had done in his community. He said he accepted there would be a factor of public shame that would be brought on him. He noted Smyth had lost relationships and may continue to do so.<\/p>\n He noted Smyth had co-operated with the investigation, handing over pins and passwords. He noted a letter to the court from Smyth that accepts the offences are horrendous but he does not accept the jury verdict.<\/p>\n He said the factors relating to the possession were similar, albeit limited to four images.<\/p>\n The judge said the young age of the children in the four images was aggravating. He noted that viewing this material creates a market demand leading to children being exploited.<\/p>\n The judge imposed concurrent sentences totalling 4\u00bd years.<\/p>\n Sergeant Nathan McKenna told Lisa Dempsey, prosecuting, the offences came to light when a special agent in the United States involved in an undercover investigation of people using the Kik app had an online interaction with an online alias contended by the prosecution to have been Smyth.<\/p>\n This alias engaged in online conversation with the agent on the Kik app and shared illegal images with her. He then directed her to a Dropbox and shared a link in the hope of trading material. The agent accessed the link and found 100 images of child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n The IP address was traced to Ireland and garda\u00ed, acting on this information, searched Smyth\u2019s then address. He co-operated with the search, providing pin codes to his phone, which was seized. He denied any offending.<\/p>\n He attended voluntarily for interview and gave further details of legitimate emails. He contended the usernames had nothing to do with him. He said another person had access to his phone. <\/p>\n Four images were recovered from his phone and two of these files were the same as the files sent to the agent while she was conversing with the alias. Deleted Kik username information was also recovered and Dropbox was deleted in the days before the search.<\/p>\n Defence counsel handed in a letter written by Smyth. He outlined his client had a difficult childhood and was someone who had since led a hardworking life. He said Smyth had worked with various organisations as a way of giving back to his community.<\/p>\n He said Smyth will now lose his job and his plans for retirement. He submitted there was also the factor of public shame. He asked the court to treat his client as leniently as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former civil servant who was convicted of the possession and distribution of child sex abuse images has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,5721,61,78654,60,43],"class_list":["post-461084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-district-court","tag-ie","tag-inchicore","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}